Maisto has been attacking the premium 1:64 scale market with some vigor in
the past few years. Once the novelty of their modern Playerz cars wore off,
they retreated to the low-hanging fruit of the muscle car world, then
splintered off in all directions: Volkswagens, high-riser Donk-style cars,
slammed ’60s machines, the occasional manufacturer-ordered promotional
model, you name it. Other than making some nice models, with high levels of
finish and slammed stances, it was hard to sense a direction. And maybe that
was the point.

This scattershot approach, while slightly hard to grasp at first, has yielded some fruit – and it’s available only at Target stores. The All-Stars
100 Red series (Red for Target’s theme color, we suspect) takes a number of Maisto’s excellent premium castings, gives them exclusive paint jobs and wheel combinations, and sends them out one wave at a time. So what? Don’t be so quick to dismiss these as retreads. There are castings we have not seen before (the Lamborghini Gallardo was announced but we’d never seen it, a
Scion TC in both ambulance and California Highway Patrol markings, an early
Chevy Vega with a Pro Street-worthy rear wheel opening, a lovely ’59 Impala seen here, a sister ’65 Impala, and apparently a new Cadillac STS-V), there
are castings we hadn’t seen in single blister before (hello ’87 Chevy
Caprice, rescued from its high-riding Donk chassis, and clear-roofed Lincoln
MKR concept, previously only available in gift sets or as an auto show
handout), and there are some old favorites returning (’68 Vette, we’re
looking at you). Each casting will be available multiple times in multiple
paint schemes, so if you miss one, another will come along eventually. (Each
also comes with a handy checklist poster of what other cars will be
available in the series.)

Granted, 100 is a lot for anyone, especially at three bucks a car and when the castings repeat a couple of times as they seem to here, but we hope that Target and Maisto stick it out to the natural end of the run. Then again,
three bucks, the usual price threshold for premium 1:64 die cast, was broken last year and shows no sign of slowing down. In the face of that, these are
a bargain. And collectors are responding: There aren’t a lot hanging on pegs in the Targets near us, and new ones like this Impala have been disappearing quickly. May we suggest you investigate sooner rather than later?

(Oh, and check out Maisto’s five-packs, mostly at Wal-Mart but elsewhere too, and you may find a cool new basic-line casting: the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8, in production trim!)

(This post originally appeared in the April 24, 2008, issue of the Hemmings eWeekly Newsletter.)